[genzoman]

Giving up some of the night sky for the billions of humans that live in rural areas, or live in countries where the physical internet is controlled by oppressive governments hellbent on withholding information from its citizens is worth it. The trillions of dollars it would take to build out infrastructure (and maintain) in Africa and India is worth it. In fact, even 20 Mbps would be life changing in bringing information to ~10-15% of humans is worth it.

[fooqux]

I'm glad you think it's worth it. I'm not as sure, personally. Especially since your examples don't hold water with me.

Oppressive governments that don't like the internet aren't going to just allow the transceivers. They need line of sight to the sky and even if you hide them, detecting them would be trivial. Super rural areas and 3rd world areas have their own set of problems. I'm thinking of the OLPC type issues here. I'm all for spreading knowledge, but these areas have far bigger issues than internet access.

Personally, I view this as just another bulldozing a place of nature to build a hospital or something like that. Is that hospital useful? Undoubtedly. Is it worth having one less place of nature? Debatable.

The only difference is scale. We're talking about the destruction of a place of nature for the entire world. Over dramatized? I don't think so- there are many examples of people talking about looking up at the stars in wonderment, driving them to great things. Maybe that will still happen when there are thousands of satellites streaming by, but nobody has that foresight.

[Trombone12]

Yeah, all that talk about free internet for all the poor and oppressed sounds pretty suspicious set beside the claims that starlink is supposed to make money too. How will a rural Guatemalan farmer that cooks on a three stones fire provide any sort of profit?

[wmf]

He'll pay for Starlink using a microloan and pay back the loan using online gig work or influencing, obviously. :-/

[Trombone12]

Another poster pointed out that he will obviously pay it back by investing in bitcoin!

[dzhiurgis]

Don't underestimate how cheap smartphones + solar is and how cheap Starlink actually is.

Sure he cooks on a fire because it's practical. You don't need to fetch gas/fuel for your stove. Now with Starlink you won't need to go to town once a week to check your bitcoin transactions.

[Trombone12]

ITT:

> Too poor to make stove out of bricks

> Goes spend full day per week to go an check on their bitcoin transactions

Uh, are you sure you have a grounded understanding of what rural poverty means?

[dzhiurgis]

You’ve missed out on irony and bitcoin and guatemala farmer (cant find it right now). Also you are underestimating the needs of impoverished people. Part of impoverishment is lack of connectivity and facilities to charge phone. Not other way around.

[Rebelgecko]

I would be astounded if SpaceX turns on Starlink over China and other countries that censor the internet.

[dzhiurgis]

It's just gonna be routed thru China. Probably each country internet is going to go first thru local provider, unless you've got some sort of privilege (same as it is now with VPN's).